COLUMN ONE

He Reels In the Big Deals

Entertainment attorney Skip Brittenham has clients on all sides of the table. His many fans see assets, not entanglements.

Many people in Hollywood can't be bothered to talk about much beyond the weekend box-office results and which studio head will be fired next. Reluctant to ever truly unplug from the industry, top executives often vacation together in the same spots. Not Brittenham.

He doesn't hesitate to put a multimillion-dollar deal on hold while he travels to a river halfway around the world. Sometimes, these fishing trips are in locations so remote that he is unreachable for days at a time. He knows the deal will still be there when he returns.

During the Weinsteins' settlement talks with Disney, for example, one strategy meeting grew particularly tense, as the brothers' representatives realized that the deal was threatening to fall apart.

Bertram Fields, another attorney in the room, remembers that at one point someone turned to Brittenham, demanding to know what he planned to do to salvage the situation. Brittenham simply smiled. He knew the players. He'd understood the pressures, and how close tempers were to boiling over. It was time to pause, not act.